Professional Diploma in

Photography

Starts On

Whether you want to tell a story, sell a product or just capture the beauty around you, photography is essential for fulfilling your creative vision. On this course, we will teach you the skills you need to make the transition from fully automatic to fully manual shooting. Expand your creative potential and capture the images you have always dreamt of by joining this course today.

8 Interactive Lessons

This first lesson explores photographic styles and how they are used as forms of communication. This lesson also explains the process of capturing and recording. Understanding the concept of exposure, is essential to your ability to capture the scene, the way you see it. Finally we take look at the various types of cameras currently available and why you would use one over the other.

In lesson 2, we will look at the common functions that appear on most cameras and demystify their use. Understanding these functions will expand your creative control and open up new possibilities for your images. We also explore the most frequently used lenses and when and where they are used.

Controlling and manipulating motion and depth in your images will allow you to add drama and sophistication to your images. Whether you want to freeze an athlete in action or blur the background of a portrait, controlling motion and depth will expand your capabilities and allow you to explore new subjects.

Composition refers to the placement and relationship of elements within a picture. The arrangement of elements in a scene, the angle they are shot at, and the distance the photo is taken from, can completely change the final outcome of your photograph. Understanding how to explore all of the compositional possibilities of the scene will greatly improve your ability to capture the best photographs.

To fully understand how much light, you need to capture for a scene, you need a way of measuring how much light is there. Lesson 5 looks at the light meter and discusses how it can be used to understand your exposure, even before you have taken the picture and is essential to moving into Full Manual mode.

The marriage of shutter and aperture in manual mode gives you the most creative control offered to you by the camera. Having an understanding of the relationship between the two, will allow you to expand the potential of your photography and make creative decisions that were not available to you before!

In Lesson 7, we look at the different colours of various light sources and how they can change the atmosphere and mood of your photographs. We explore focusing and how it is key for taking high quality photographs that are sharp and capture your vision.

Here we explore file format and how digital images are constructed. This gives you an insight into the file formats available on your camera which equips you with the knowledge to select the highest quality file format and image size that best suits your purpose. We will also look at some image editing software and the key differences between the most popular ones on the market.

Module II - Mastering Light Module

Week 1: Advanced Exposure

In this lesson we will discuss in detail the cameras histogram and how this is an essential tool for making extremely accurate exposures in any lighting condition. It will also allow you to make critical decisions about your exposure, without relying on the visual image that your camera shows you on screen. The beauty of this knowledge is that you won’t even have to look at the image on the screen to know that you have the right exposure.

Week 2: Mastering Exposure for Colour Images

This lesson takes your abilities to refine and control exposure even further. It will look how spot metering can be used to meter different tones within your image, to identify how much light is being reflected from a variety of subject and tones, and create the best exposure in any situation. An advanced knowledge of the tones in your scene will ensure that you will always create accurate and consistent images.

Week 3: Introduction to Flash Photography

Having the skills and ability to use flash lighting in your photography is as important as being able to work with natural light. In this lesson we will be looking at all of the various uses of flash in photography. Flash is an essential tool to any photographer whether you just want to add a little bit of light to eliminate shadow or you want to light an entire scene. Knowledge on flash allows you to control and shape the light to create stunning images.

Week 4: Studio Flash and Shaping Light

In this lesson, we will be looking at how light can be shaped and manipulated to give you much more control over how your subject is represented. We will be looking at different styles of lighting commonly used in studio photography and the set ups to achieve them. This will broaden the range of lighting options you have when you are doing a studio shoot and expand your creative abilities.

Module III - Powerful Enhancement Module

Week 1: Camera Raw Processing

The ability to shoot images that are completely unprocessed in camera gives you complete control over image quality. Shooting in Raw gives you greater control over exposure, tone, sharpness and compression. We will be looking at how using the camera raw processing software can give you much more creative capabilities, whilst maintaining the highest quality files possible from your camera.

Week 2: Creating Black and White Images - Part 1

Capturing amazing dramatic Black and White images requires a completely different thought process than shooting in colour. When shooting black and white images you focus much more on light, tone and contrast. In this lesson, you will learn how to develop this new thought process and visual awareness, for seeing and capturing pictures that will make stunning black and white images.

Week 3: Creating Black and White Images - Part 2

Converting images from colour, into strong dynamic black and white images is no easy task. You will learn how to manipulate colours in an image, to create stunning tones and contrast when they are converted into Black and White. This will ensure you are producing images that resemble the work of the traditional masters of black and white photography.

Week 4: High Dynamic Range (HDR)

HDR photography allows the photographer to create images with increased dynamic range. This is a photograph that is created by using multiple exposures, to create a scene that is full of detail, from the deepest blacks to the whitest highlights. The key to capturing successful HDR photos is preparation. In these lessons, you will learn how to properly set up for the HDR photo and then how to bring it together to create a stunning final photo.

Module IV - Creative Techniques Module

Week 1: Advanced Lens Techniques

How many times have you captured a photo that you are proud of, only to view it closely afterwards on a monitor and be disappointed that it is not sharp? This is a frequent occurrence for photographers. There are steps that we can take to ensure the sharpest photos in any situation with any lens available to us. This lesson covers this in detail but also looks at other effects that you can achieve with our lenses such as Bokeh.

Week 2: Low light Photography

After dark, the entire world changes and offers a completely different photographic experience. These lessons explore the exciting world of low light photography and the incredible images we can make with long exposures, drawing with light and using flash for extra impact. We will also explore astrophotography and the process of capturing the night sky.

Week 3: Macro

Macro photography is photographing small objects or insects and is a hugely popular area in photography. This lesson explores all things Macro. The two biggest challenges for Macro photographers are getting close enough to the subject and getting enough light in the scene. We look at all the options here for creating stunning Macro photos and take a closer look at the world around you!

Week 4: Colour Management and Output

When all the hard work is done and your images are looking amazing, you will want them to look as good in print as they do on screen. This can often be the most frustrating part of the photographic process. You can put in all of that hard work perfecting your images, only to get prints back that are either too bright or too dark. The colours can often be totally different than what you saw on screen. Colour management is essential to ensure you have consistent colour, tone, brightness levels, contrast from camera all the way through the post production stages, right up to the final print.

Anna Burnham

Love love LOVE Shaw Academy! I took the Photography Class and I loved every minute of it! I learned more in the first few lessons of this online course than I did during my University's photography class. I am now proud to say I am a lifetime member of Shaw Academy and I am loving my new classes (Ultimate Photography and Nutrition) and I am super excited to take more in the future! Great classes! Wonderful teachers! I highly recommend!

Aarti Pradhan

Diploma in photography- Excellent course taught by Thomas Wood. He covered the foundations of photography.

Amanda Black Moore

I'm learning so much in the photography course! The lessons are interesting and fun. I love that Tom gives visual examples of the concepts and ideas being taught.

Darren Verbout

The photography course that Shaw Academy has to offer is over the top! When signing up, I wasn't sure how well it would go, if I would have much interaction with the staff, if comprehension would be an issue? Let me just say, this course can start anyone, and I mean anyone in the right direction! Thomas Woods has an amazing skill as an instructor. You can tell that he is passionate about what he does & that in turn creates excitement and passion in us as students.

Darcy Lynn

If you want to expand your photography skills and knowledge, take your photography to the next level or just have a better understanding of what you have already been doing, then Diploma in Photography is for you! Diploma in Photography is a well designed and well presented course. The Information is well thought out and delivered in each lesson in concise easy-to-understand format, with good audio and visual presentation.

Heidi Allen Wesolowski

I am LOVING this Foundation of Photography course! I have a fancy camera and not much of an idea how to use it to take control and to take amazing photos. When I saw the Groupon I was intrigued.

Maku Artes

AWESOME. just received a call from my course manager.

Maria Kantor

Shaw Academy, and definitely the Photography course, has exceeded all my expectations. I love photography but was never any good at it.

Roberta Kavaliauskaite Potgieter

I just signed up to be a lifetime member of Shaw Academy because they really are wonderful at what they do. I am about to complete the foundation in photography course and it has been brilliant so far.

Jackie Fabre

I have registered with to do my Photography Course, and I have been nothing but pleased. The information is stunningly laid out and the instructors are clear and very interactive.